Such a scheme is proposed (refer to, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-83800) that a numerical aperture of an objective lens is increased corresponding to a refractive index (>1) of a liquid in a way that fills a space between a front edge of the objective lens and the substrate with the liquid such as water by use of the objective lens of a liquid immersion system in order to observe, with a high resolution, flaws and foreign matters of a circuit pattern formed on the substrate (e.g., a semiconductor wafer and a liquid crystal substrate). Another scheme is proposed, which makes the observation in a state of local liquid immersion for attaining a compact configuration of the apparatus. In this case, after observing the substrate at every observation point while locally supplying the liquid, the liquid is collected.
The apparatus described above is, however, incapable of highly efficiently supplying or collecting the liquid when making the observation based on the local liquid immersion. Hence, the apparatus could not conduct the liquid immersion observation of the substrate at a high throughput.